Family Services

The Family Services team at Barwon Child, Youth & Family provides a range of support services to families. Family Services will allocate a caseworker to each family, and this caseworker will engage care givers in the family to understand their needs. Typically, the type of support Family Services provides is in relation to parenting skills, mental health, drug and alcohol issues, family violence, housing and child protective issues. To access Family Services support, caregivers or other services must refer the family through the Barwon Child FIRST team. From here the Child FIRST team has the ability to send the referral through to a number of Family Services partners. If you would like Barwon Child, Youth & Family to be the agency that is allocated this family, it is important to communicate this on the Child FIRST referral. A family's involvement with Family Services is always voluntary, and so a strong alliance is built between our agency and families. We listen to families to understand their needs, and work quickly to put in place actions responsive to those needs.